Educators
Inquire into the bold women of Kentucky with our resources.
Inquiry Blueprints
Use the following Inquiry Design Model Blueprints to create lessons for your students.
Use this structure to integrate any featured woman into your history lessons.
Additional Resources
Featured in….
Women in Kentucky | Social Studies Shorts
Social Studies Shorts is a new series from KET that explores social studies and civics topics, from here in Kentucky to the nation and the world.
Alice Allison Dunnigan
Alice Allison Dunnigan, Explore Kentucky History
Alice Allison Dunnigan: Statue honors 1st black woman to cover WH, USA Today, 21 August 2018
Alone Atop the Hill: The Autobiography of Alice Dunnigan (1974)
Anna Shepherd
Appalachia’s Place in the War on Poverty, The Appalachian Voice, 9 April 2014
BOE interviews candidates behind locked doors, Chronicle and Times (Floyd County), 2 May 2018
Early childhood program ensures students are ready for kindergarten, WYMT, 8 March 2018
Anne Braden and Charlotte Wade
Louisville open housing pioneer Charlotte Wade dies, WDRB, 22 January 2020
Louisville Remembers A Tumultuous Time 60 Years Ago | Here & Now, WBUR, 1 December 2014
Collection: Anne McCarty Braden papers, University of Louisville
Anne Braden Oral History Project · SPOKEdb, University of Kentucky
Ashley Judd
Forget Your Team: Your Online Violence Toward Girls and Women Is What Can Kiss My Ass, Ashley Judd, 19 March 2015
She Said by Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey (2019)
Ashley Judd: How Can We—As A Society—Heal From Sexual Violence? TED Talk, 1 February 2019
bell hooks
10 bell hooks Books That Are Must-Reads in 2020
In Praise of bell hooks, New York Times, 28 February 2019
- Belonging: A Culture of Place informed her story in Bluegrass Bold
Charlotte Dupuy
Violence in the Black Patch of Kentucky and Tennessee, 1994
A History of Blacks in Kentucky: From Slavery to Segregation, 1760-1891, 2003
Enslaved People at Ashland – Henry Clay
Charlotte Dupuy, White House Historical Association
*Not all biographies on Henry Clay mention Charlotte
Delia Webster
The KY Encyclopedia: The Kentucky Encyclopedia
Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad, 1999
Kentucky jurisprudence : a history of the trial of Miss Delia A. Webster at Lexington, Kentucky, Library of Congress, 1845
Eula Hall
At 90, Eula Hall still works in the Appalachian health clinic she created, Lexington Herald-Leader, 3 January 2018
Eula Hall’s Mud Creek Clinic: Kentucky’s ‘People that Help People’, 100 Days in Appalachia, 15 April 2019
Kentucky’s Godmother to the Poor, People Magazine, 24 October 1991
Voices from the Mountains, 1996
To Live Here, You Have to Fight: How Women Led Appalachian Movements for Social Justice, 2018
Georgia Davis Powers
Georgia Davis Powers Oral History Project · SPOKEdb, University of Kentucky
Georgia Davis Powers, legislator and civil rights pioneer, dies at 92, Lexington Herald-Leader, 31 January 2016
Civil rights leader Georgia Powers dies at 92, Louisville Courier-Journal, 30 January 2016
Georgia Davis Powers Archives – Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame Oral History Project
Hadeel Abdallah
Hadeel Abdallah | The Process of Inclusivity, Creative Mornings, 29 April 2019
UK Senior Hadeel Abdallah Named Rhodes Scholar, University of Kentucky, 20 November 2018
Congratulations, Hadeel Abdallah. Please tell everyone at Oxford where you are from, Lexington Herald-Leader, 21 November 2018
Hailey Case, Jordan Harrell, Lilly Dunn
‘Almost No One Agrees With Us’: For Rural Students, Gun Control Can Be a Lonely Cause, New York Times, 21 May 2018.
Teen Activists, New York Times Editorial Staff, 2019
Jean Ritchie
Kentucky folksinger, dulcimer player Jean Ritchie dies at 92, Associated Press, 2 June 2015
Joan Robinett
Interview with Joan Robinett, Activists Speak Out, 2000
Moody v. Cooper Industries, Inc., Civil Action No. 03-158-JBC, 2006
Town Is Laboratory for Chemical Hazards, Los Angeles Times, 2 June 191
Julia Britton Hooks
Julia Britton Hooks, Tennessee Encyclopedia, Tennessee Historical Society, 2017
Julia Britton Hooks, Kentucky Women in the Civil Rights Era, 2010
Hooks, Julia Britton, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database
Home – Britton Hooks, Julia, Berea College
Lucille Caudill Little
Lucille Caudill Little: Her philanthropy leaves a lasting, impactful, meaningful legacy, Kentucky Forward, 19 September 2011
Interview with Lucille Caudill Little, November 17, 1998 · SPOKEdb
A (Lucille) Little goes a long way: Investing in the Arts in Lexington, Ace Weekly, 1 September 1995
Margaret Ingels
Margaret Ingels Papers, University of Kentucky
The Kentuckian, University of Kentucky, 1916
The Kentucky Kernel, September 30, 1927
Petticoats and Sliderules, Margaret Ingels, 1952
How air conditioning changed the world, BBC, 4 June 2017
Marie Willie Arvin
An Angel of Mercy Under Fire: Kentucky’s Most Decorated First World War Female Veteran, 9 March 2015
Nurse Mary W. Arvin, Explore Kentucky History
A Moment in Kentucky History: Mary Arvin, WWI Nurse, Kentucky Humanities, 13 January 2020
Marjorie Jones and Tracey Knight
Dr. Catherine Fosl, It Could Be Dangerous! Gay Liberation and Gay Marriage in Louisville, Kentucky, 1970, Ohio Valley History; The Filson Historical Society and Cincinnati Museum Center, 2012
When Gay Marriage Was Radical, Huffington Post, 2 February 2016
‘A victory’ for LGBTQ rights as Kentucky’s first two historic markers unveiled, Lexington Herald-Leader, 3 June 2018
Historic LGBTQ Site, Explore Kentucky History
Martha Layne Collins
Martha Layne Collins Oral History Project, Eastern Kentucky University
GOV. MARTHA LAYNE COLLINS, Kentucky Women’s History Project
Mary Edwards Walker
Dr. Mary Edwards Walker — The only woman to ever receive the Medal of Honor, Kentucky National Guard, 7 March 2014
‘I Wear My Own Clothes’, New York Times, 2 December 2013
Statue to Dr. Mary Edwards Walker to be dedicated Saturday, Syracuse.com, 9 May 2012
Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, Crusader is Dead (Obituary), New York Times, 23 February 1919
Mizari Suárez
Better, safer, more prosperous neighborhoods shouldn’t mean the neighbors have to leave them, Lexington Herald-Leader, 13 November 2020
Lexington’s East End: A changing neighborhood, Kentucky Kernel, 26 March 2020
Reflecting on the Women’s March, College Media Network
Nannie Helen Burroughs
Nannie H. Burroughs, “Black Women and Reform,” The Crisis, August 1915
Sharon Harley, “Nannie Helen Burroughs: ‘The Black Goddess of Liberty,’ 1996
Nannie Helen Burroughs, (US National Park Service)
Burroughs, Nannie Helen, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University
Native American Women
Not Just a Hunting Ground: Native Americans in Kentucky, Lexington History
Tour | Explore KY’s Native American History, Explore Kentucky History
Nima Kulkarni
Democrat Nima Kulkarni launches primary challenge in Kentucky’s 40th District, India Abroad, 14 March 2018
Nima Kulkarni: a strong informed voice for Kentucky, Forward Kentucky, 20 September 2018
Meet Nima (election website)
Rosemary Clooney
Rose Will Monroe
Collection of articles on the “real” Rosie
Fighting to Save Rosie the Riveter’s Factory, History.com, 31 July 2013
Famed Riveter In War Effort, Rose Monroe Dies at 77 (Published 1997), New York Times, 2 June 1997
The ‘real’ Rosie the Riveter is buried in New Albany, Louisville Courier-Journal, 24 March 2017
Rosie Moosnick
Arab and Jewish Women in Kentucky Stories of Accommodation and Audacity, Rosie Moosnick
Interview with Nora “Rosie” Moosnick, March 28, 2018 · SPOKEdb, University of Kentucky
Nora Rose Moosnick tells the story behind new book, ‘Arab and Jewish Women in Kentucky’, Ace Weekly, 9 July 2012
Sarah Frances Price
Biographical Sketch of Sadie Price, Biodiversity Heritage Library, 1959
Sarah “Sadie” Frances Price (1849-1903), The University of North Carolina Herbarium
Sarah Frances Price Photo Library, Missouri Botanical Garden
Sophia Alcorn
Development of the Tadoma Method for the Deaf-Blind – Sophia Alcorn, 1945
Alcorn Homestead, Explore Kentucky History
Continuing the Work, Kentucky Women in the Civil Rights Era
Teaching Helen Keller How to Speak, American Foundation for the Blind
Facebook CHI prototype turns sounds into skin vibrations, CNBC, 17 April 2018
Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge
Sophonisba Breckinridge: Championing Women’s Activism in Modern America, Anya Jabour
Sophonisba Breckinridge, University of Chicago
‘Forgotten Feminist’ Sophonisba Breckinridge was a Woman of Many Firsts, WTTW, 7 October 2020
Soreyda Begley
Lexington fashion designer’s career started in Honduran sweatshops, Lexington Herald-Leader, 13 June 2010
Art in the Bluegrass: Soreyda Begley, Tops in Lex
Susan Look Avery
A Suffragist Dynasty: Susan Look Avery (1817-1915), H-Kentucky, 20 February 2018
Susan Look Avery One of the Club Women Who Did Not Attend the Biennial, Los Angeles Herald, 1902
Susan Avery Obit p. 1, Louisville Courier-Journal, 03 Feb 1915
SUSAN LOOK AVERY, William G. Pomeroy Foundation
Susan Mullins
Dream Catcher, KET
Artist Profile – Susan Mullins, Kentucky Arts Council
Converting classroom to camp, Richmond Register, 26 September 2011
Thomasena Grider
First black female sergeant promoted by Lexington police, Lexington Herald-Leader, 8 February 2019
What inspired Lexington’s first black female sergeant to pursue police career, Fox Lexington, 11 February 2019
Tracy Drain
Tracy Drain | Flight Systems Engineer, NASA Solar System Exploration
Tracy Drain, Kentucky to the World